Robinhood Targets Seasoned Merchants With Bitcoin Futures, New Desktop Platform – Decrypt

Robinhood is increasing its attain into the futures market by including Bitcoin and Ethereum alongside oil and the S&P 500 index as a part of its broader technique to draw seasoned merchants. A Robinhood spokesperson advised Decrypt on Wednesday its futures choices through its buying and selling app is anticipated within the “coming months.”The choices will embody Bitcoin contracts, micro Bitcoin futures, Bitcoin Friday futures, Ethereum futures, and micro Ethereum futures, the spokesperson stated.Micro futures are smaller contracts designed to make futures buying and selling extra accessible to retail and smaller-scale buyers.The announcement was made throughout Robinhood’s first-ever buyer convention, HOOD Summit, the place the corporate launched its new desktop platform, Robinhood Legend. The platform is designed particularly for lively merchants, aiming to supply refined instruments and real-time information, together with the power to commerce futures and index choices immediately from the app.Robinhood is positioning its deal with derivatives as a bid to compete with established gamers like Charles Schwab and Morgan Stanley’s E*TRADE, which already supply crypto futures.It comes because the crypto market continues to warmth up, with the worth of Bitcoin approaching its all-time excessive, close to $73,700.“With a number of the lowest charges within the trade and a sublime cellular interface, there can be no motive to commerce futures wherever else,” JB Mackenzie, Robinhood’s vice chairman and common supervisor of Futures and Worldwide stated in a press release. Gold subscribers will be capable to commerce futures for as little as $0.50 per contract, whereas non-Gold customers pays $0.75, undercutting conventional brokerages. The transfer is anticipated to drive additional curiosity amongst cryptocurrency merchants in search of extra refined publicity to belongings like Bitcoin.Robinhood Legend, in the meantime, will supply superior charting instruments, customizable layouts, and real-time information.“By speaking with lively merchants, we realized there may be frustration with legacy choices,” Steve Quirk, chief brokerage officer at Robinhood, stated within the assertion. “Transferring backwards and forwards between apps or charting platforms might be cumbersome and time-consuming. We got down to reimagine what a contemporary, intuitively designed lively buying and selling platform ought to seem like,” he added.The platform will additional assist futures and index choices buying and selling because it continues to roll out via 2024.Every day Debrief NewsletterStart day by day with the highest information tales proper now, plus authentic options, a podcast, movies and extra.